As the month draws to a close this coming Labor Day weekend, a few industry observers offered their predictions this week on what the final August tally will look like for used-vehicle sales.

Starting with Cars.com, chief analyst Jesse Toprak says a strong certified pre-owned market along with credit availability has helped push used-car sales from 3.6 million units in August 2013 to the 3.9 million used sales the company is predicting this month.

“The recent healthy growth in CPO vehicle sales has contributed partially to this increase, due to improved inventory of 2- to 4-year-old used vehicles,” Toprak said in comments provided to Auto Remarketing.

“Just like for new vehicles, credit availability has also been an important factor in the increased sales levels for the used-car market,” he added.

Over at TrueCar, analysts are anticipating 3.55 million used sales for the month.

Meanwhile, CNW Research has its prediction pegged at 3.96 million, which would be a 3-percent year-over-year decrease. The expected year-to-date sum is 28.80 million, essentially static from the eight-month sum in 2013, the company noted in its latest Retail Automotive Summary.

CNW is forecasting that franchised dealers will sell 1.47 million used vehicles this month, a 5.1-percent year-over-year decrease. Independents are forecasted to move 1.26 million vehicles, a 9.5-percent decrease from August 2013.

CNW predicts 1.23 million casual sales, a 7.7-percent hike.

Moving over to the new-car side, Cars.com is calling for more than 1.5 million sales this month, which would beat year-ago levels by 0.2 percent and top July’s mark by 4.8 percent.

What’s more, the projected SAAR of 16.6 million would mark the best August since 2005, beating year-ago figures by 4.1 percent and July numbers by 0.7 percent.

“Summer clearance discounts on outgoing 2014 model-year vehicles and the arrival of new 2015 selections helped propel August sales to the highest levels in nine years,” Toprak said. “We expect sales to continue at a healthy pace through the end of the year, finishing out 2014 with 16.3 million total new-car units.”

Toprak shared with Auto Remarketing the role leasing played in driving such a strong market.

“Leasing now makes up about 26 percent of all new-vehicle sales, up from its lowest point of 11 percent back in September 2009. We are in the middle of a perfect storm for ideal lease creation conditions: very high residual values coupled with extremely low interest rates,” he said.

“Leasing is enabling consumers to get ‘more car for the money’ and it has been critical in contributing to the consistently healthy sales growth in the new-vehicle market,” Toprak added.